Mira Showers is cutting waste and boosting its recycling as part of an internal campaign to achieve a ‘Net 0’ for landfill – a situation where the amount of waste material going to landfill is entirely offset by the amount that is recycled or utilised in “waste to energy” generation – by 2035.
Working with recycling specialist Printwaste, the company has cut the amount sent to landfill from its Cromwell Road headquarters in Cheltenham by nearly 60% in just 10 years, from more than 200 tonnes to just 85 tonnes. And the company now recycles 255 tonnes of what would otherwise be waste that went to landfill.
This initiative is both ecologically and financially sound, as every tonne that goes to landfill costs the company £72, so recycling alone has saved Mira more than £18,000. The scheme has grown from recycling paper and cardboard to include cups, cans, plastic bottles, wooden pallets, unwanted components and returned product.
Sue Potter, Mira’s Environmental Health and Safety Advisor, said: “Although we do have recycling costs these are balanced out by the increasing cost of landfill and the landfill tax.”
The increasing cost of landfill tax means that Printwaste has also run a pilot scheme to improve the recycling of Mira’s redundant stock that resulted in nearly 100% of separated materials being recyclable.